Kansas Bill Would Make Cities Warn Of Dangers Of Fluoride In Water

The Kansas House's Health and Human Services Committee has on its agenda Monday a bill that would require cities to warn citizens if fluoride is added to drinking water. The measure, which declares fluoride dangerous, has been criticized by public health officials and the Kansas Dental Association, according to The Associated Press.

The bill, known as "HB 2372," mandates that all Kansas cities and other local government entities "providing water service that artificially fluoridate their community drinking water must notify the consumers of that treated water, that the latest science confirms that ingested fluoride lowers the I.Q. in children."

The Kansas Dental Association has called the bill "simply a scare tactic designed to put unnecessary fear in the citizens of Kansas."

"Water fluoridation has been proven for decades to be a safe, health and effective way to reduce tooth decay," the association said in a statement earlier this month. "While fluoride opponents will declare water fluoridation to be harmful, science and the health profession say otherwise."

But at least some of the bill's supporters consider the matter life and death.

“I’m doing the most pro-life work I’ve ever done with this fluoride fight,” Mark Gietzen, a conservative anti-abortion activist who helped draft the fluoride bills, told the Associated Press earlier this month.

According to the Associated Press, the bill's claims about fluoride and I.Q. comes from a 2012 Harvard study that focused on children in China, which unlike the U.S. has a high natural occurrence of fluoride in its water.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recognized water fluoridation as "one of 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century."

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Eric Lach is a reporter for TPM. From 2010 to 2011, he was a news writer in charge of the website?s front page. He has previously written for The Daily, NewYorker.com, GlobalPost and other publications. He can be reached at ericl@talkingpointsmemo.com